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Sunday, 3 February 2008

L4/1 Long Live Lent!

Love Life Live Lent began life in the Birmingham Dioese last year. It’s a C of E project to get people doing simple things in Lent to enrich lives and help us grow— a reminder that Lent means “Spring” not “Guilt.” Dave Walker has details, and will be doodling us through the experience a bit. Suzy Shipman is doing every day. I can’t guarantee every day, but I’m having a go this year — what’s the point of having all those theology degrees if I don’t actually do anything about it?

L4 starts today, not Wednesday. Not sure why, but there you are. So... We’re off!

1. Read the parable of the Good Samaritan. I used the Message, because it often opens doors on the Bible for me that other translations don’t. Jesus isn’t proposing anything dramatically new — just loving God and everyone, but for real. This is a serious challenge to the Dickensian Charity thing, where only the “deserving“ poor get help, because they’re deserving, not because they're human. In the old Tudor poor laws you whip the others from pillar to post, so that they become someone else’s problem. Being a Dickensian Prat damages the person doing it as much as the person they ignore. This is really disturbing stuff. It's a vision not a concept, to carry through the next few weeks, and see what happens...

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Child of God by adoption and grace, husband of Lucy, father of five, jumped-up vicar (Area Bishop of Buckingham).
Born Edinburgh. Deacon 1979, Priest 1980, Bishop 2003. Cambridge MA, Oxford DPhil — ‘I am a doctor, but not the kind that helps people.’ I trained for ordained ministry at Wycliffe Hall. I have worked in various C of E contexts, urban and suburban, as well as in prison.